Book 4
Siha: Rise of Rakhana
Part II
Rising from the bed and leaving his beloved wife with a blanket pulled up to the round of her shoulder, Tetonbaum dresses himself.
Reaching for the belt with the pouch of shards inside this, he tries hard not to see the mundane apartment that has been—for the past year—their home.
Taking hold of the pouch, once his belt is strapped round his pants' waist through its loops, he plays with the clicks and sliding of shards inside its soft containment, gazing mournfully at his wife…He gazes down at the pouch, and opens its strings briefly…
The shards face him from its shadowed interior.
Is there no way to avoid it?…
Dutifully, feeling the urge to do so—for it is a comfort, and a passion, to him—he makes the sign of the Tierrea over his brow scales…Tetonbaum pulls out his menjaga from the dresser's drawer. His sapphire eyes water.
…Is there no other way?…Choose for family…She will die if the path says she will...He holds the menjaga across his palms and steps slowly towards the bed. Tetonbaum stares at his wife, asleep, drugged on the lacings of the gentle poison on his lips and turns the blade about to grips its handle firmly.
…I love thee…I have murdered my own mother in love, the only other female I have given my heart to…This will be no less difficult, but it can be done…
Tetonbaum mounts the bed mattress, moving on knees towards his wife's sleeping form.
…I will see thee again…one day, my dear wife, when it is time to pass my blade to another…
Her chest he exposes to the ceiling, gently rolling her over onto her back by the pull of her pale shoulder, and Tetonbaum's tears fall down his patak as he moves the blankets away…Her eyes are closed and she is peaceful, barely a flutter of the dreaming state experienced above the layer of deep sleep…He bends to kiss both her eyelids, her lashes not flickering once from crush of his touch…
…I love thee…Is this not a better way to go, my love?…
He poises the tip of his menjaga over her pale sternum.
…I will be thy freedom…I will pay penance for this sin forever…By this blade through thy heart, I free thee from all pain, and misery, to come…
The tears pour as he shudders, ( …Kasumi, until we unite again, my love… )
Lifting the knife a measured inch and no more—as he has been trained to do since a child for this release ritual—Tetonbaum Soterios strikes down, firmly holding the blade erect and vertical until it pierces through her bone and muscles…into her heart.
He weeps when the deed is done…Withdrawing his menjaga to drop it on the blanket beside them, Tetonbaum clasps her still-warm body up to himself and sobs silently, rocking her back and forth in his arms…
I hold onto something…I'm holding onto a memory in my hand…I keep turning it over and over with my fingers, thinking about it like the shard but the shard it is not…It is my grief…my sin…my mistake…
Fin.